Transformers 3: Bayocalypse!

This is what producer Jerry Bruckheimer told a just starting-out director Michael Bay, which Bay then told a table full of reporters on the Paramount Lot recently, moments before the filmmaker unleashed Transformers 3 footage on us.

And protecting his movie - and his franchise - seems to be Bay's mandate from minute one on Dark of the Moon, Bay's last TF movie as director.

Judging by the scenes we were shown, and the director's fierce enthusiasm for talking about the work his cast and crew did on this picture, Bay's not only protecting his movie, but making sure he goes out leaving some very big shoes to fill, for whomever inherits the franchise that he, for better or worse, has shepherded.

Exit Theatre Mode

"It's too early to tell, you know. Still birthing this one," Bay said when asked where the franchise can go from here. "I think you have to reboot it."

Before Hollywood Groundhog Day's themselves on Optimus Prime and Company, Bay showed us 15 minutes of footage – some in 3D – that is much more darker and bloodier than anything this PG-13 franchise has ever done. Dead bodies lean against the charred chassis of cars in the streets of battle-ravaged Chicago, as Decepticons lay siege to a city last seen as Batman's Gotham. But not even the Dark Knight could save Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and the cabal of Robot Special Forces troops he seems to associate with whenever skyscraper-sized aliens invade Earth.

That's because drones patrol the skies, vaporizing anything and anyone that violates their airspace. Death blimps manned by Decepti-troopers, which look like Brainiac by way of Cybertron, hover over the broken city as mile-long mech tentacles surge and wrap themselves around a building our heroes have sadly chosen for refuge. It's Battle: Chicago meets Black Hawk Down, starring warring Transformers who use Earth as a battlefield. (That sound you hear is your brain buying your ticket for you.)

Whether or not the story – the character drama – can support and justify this edgier take on Hasbro's toy line remains to be seen. But what we did see gives us at least 3 good reasons why those still suffering from the junk slap that was Revenge of The Fallen should give Transformers 3 their box-office respects.